Seattle TV station puts stoned drivers to the test

A Seattle television station got three drivers high on marijuana to test how much the drug impacted their driving abilities.

KIRO-TV did the segment to test whether police officers noticed a difference in how stoned drivers reacted on the road. The station also questioned whether Washington’s newly minted limit of 5 nanograms of THC was appropriate.

The station had mixed results from the volunteers, who ranged from an occasional smoker to a heavy user.

The heavy user, who showed up above the legal limit, didn’t initially have any problems navigating the course. It wasn’t until she had 1.4 grams of marijuana that she started to struggle driving, according to the television station.

The station reported she was 11 times the legal limit of THC.

After nearly a gram of “blueberry-train wreck” marijuana, the occasional smoker and weekend user struggled to drive the course. One driver nearly hit a cameraman and another driver forgot how to navigate the course.

The police officer monitoring the volunteers said all three drivers likely would have ended up in jail. The officer, however, didn’t immediately flag the stoned drivers as being impaired.

Bob Calkins, a Washington State Patrol spokesman, told The Oregonian in December that officers wouldn’t act differently to the new limit. He said drivers would only be pulled over if they appeared to be under the influence.

“We don’t just pull people over and draw blood,” Calkins told The Oregonian. “If you’re driving OK, we’re not going pull you over. But driving impaired is still driving impaired.”